Tuesday, 15 April 2014

Kid's Clothes Week: It's a wrap.

I'm very pleased to say that with the exception of the purple cardigan everything I sewed last week has already been worn, washed and dried and even worn again. Score!

I only really get to sew after kid's bedtime in the evenings (although I did sneak in a bit of lunchtime sewing on Wednesday and Sunday). So I knew I'd have to be organised to get through the challenge I'd set myself.

I had everything prewashed, patterns traced and fabric cut before the week started.

I'm normally one to sew a single garment from start to finish but for the sake of speed I decided to sew in colour batches and to try and minimise the number of times I had to switch to the loose bobbin, walking foot and double needle on the sewing machine, or swap thread colours on the overlocker.

I started with grey overlocking (yellow and grey tights) then moved to dark pink (jacket, pink tights and Field Trip dress) then did some finishing of the jacket and Field Trip pocket before switching to hemming mode and double needle-ing everything.

Next, brown thread in the overlocker (Flashback Skinny T and last pair of leggings) and hemmed before changing back to regular sewing machine sewing and making the Japanese dress.

Then the Sailboat, Playtime and Apple Picking dress were just sewn one after the other in kind-a normal fashion, albeit with some pretty late nights.

I had a pretty solid Autumn theme to my colours and I hope I balanced my love of brown with my daughters need for a bit of pink or purple. Now that I've finally got around to doing some ironing, and caught up with the backlog there, her wardrobe is looking very full!

Surprisingly there was only one hiccup for the week which was when I drove the needle through one of the ten buttons on the Apple Picking dress and cracked it. Thankfully only 5 of them have to be functioning buttons, so the one that has been superglued back together will hopefully be OK as a decorative button. (I claim I was distracted by my son who managed to get his rear end stuck through the ladder of the trampoline and was screaming from the garden. Normally I would have ignored him awhile and finished sewing the button with full concentration but he was yelling pretty loudly! - we eventually got him unstuck without the need for the fire brigade. twit.)

Thanks to everyone who dropped by throughout the week to say something nice. It was like having a cheerleading team and I was regularly checking my blog while I was sewing!

Wow! I'm so impressed with all of these - you've sewn faster than I've had time to write comments! I agree with you about the changing colour thread statement - it saves so much time if you can sew two or more items with one colour. My pet hate is switching from ball point to normal needles on my overlocker... grrr!

Well I guess I have to confess that my overlocker is still "wearing" the same needles it came home from the shop with! (I think that's about a year ago now) - insert embarrassed face.For me it's changing the bobbin case and walking foot and double needle for hems. My son is intrigued by that aspect of sewing (the screwdriver parts that is) I should train him up to do these jobs for me!

I'm intrigued by your conveyor belt sewing but then, I guess, I don't have quite the same time pressures you do . My husband says I shouldn't give up my day job because at the speed I sew I'd only be getting about 10 cents / hour if it was a paid job. It looks like you are a zillion times faster. No wonder you're pleased with your output!These are all very cute. I can't wait to see what you make P

Even when we're on speed we're worth too much to sew for a living! I can't imagine how boring it would be to make a dozen pair of leggings to sell at a market. but four pairs for my own kid or a friend's, well that's a hobby, and that's fun!

Thanks Kristi, it's the first time I've made an all out assault on KCW like this. I'd seen others do it and thought they were mad but it was quite a reasonable work load, just about three days longer than I'd usually go at a stretch.

DANG. I am super super impressed. All of your planning, and batch sewing (I totally hear you on the thread changing - I try to sew a bunch of items before changing serger thread) clearly paid off. This is a whole wardrobe! Such practical, wearable pieces, too.

I am so amazed by how much you sewed. I think I should I try to get my children stuck in a ladder when I am sewing and then I wouldn't have to worry about them coming and trying to push buttons on my sewing machine. I could listen to music to block out the yelling. But the neighbors could be a problem.